


Light of the Morning

by stelliums



Series: Magical Girl AU [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, F/M, Minor Aqua/Terra (Kingdom Hearts), POV Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), POV Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Trans Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26902147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelliums/pseuds/stelliums
Summary: A new magical girl finds company in Ventus. A (late) birthday gift for Shaky-Mayhemm.(This oneshot is a stand-alone fic, no additional knowledge of the series needed)
Relationships: Ventus & Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Ventus/Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Magical Girl AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1913002
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Light of the Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shaky_mayhemm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaky_mayhemm/gifts).



Ventus was out alone that night. It was a rare occurrence to not be by Aqua’s side. But her boyfriend had insisted a night alone with his partner, something that Ven couldn’t blame him for. There had been a glimmer in Terra’s eyes when he had talked about the date that he had planned for him and Aqua. When they had left school together, a glint of metal had caught the light from his pocket. Ven smiled to himself and wondered if Aqua had managed to notice the same small detail. If not, she was in for a truly wonderful surprise.

A whistling sound accompanied a sharp object as it flew towards him. Ven felt a sharp pain in his ear and held his hand over it. He cursed under his breath at the uneven dent he felt. A silver dagger had hit the brick wall behind him and clattered to the floor. He picked up the blade; an orange gem rested in the hilt. It appeared dull, ordinary, without the glow that his own gem, attached to a band on his wrist, emitted. There were no sounds from the rooftops, only the rumbling of cars nearby. Whoever had nicked his ear must have gotten away.

“Motherfucker.” He hissed. Then he saw a shadow on one of the balconies, reflected by the lights inside the building. He couldn’t make out any specific details about the stranger’s appearance, aside from the dark dress that they wore. Their arms leaned against the balcony as though they were a puppet whose strings had been cut. Ven looked from the blade to the stranger and back again.

He used the satellite dishes attached to the side of the building to climb to the balcony, with the dagger stuffed into his sock. The metal bent and occasionally snapped under his weight; he and others like him were agile but not light enough to clamber over the fragile satellites without causing damage. Ven mumbled an apology to the residents whose television he must have interrupted with his antics as he scrambled up to the balcony. 

The stranger, a girl not much younger than he was, appeared not to be leaning against the balcony but instead was draped over it like a ragdoll. She didn’t turn to look at him when he approached her. His face turned pale. He couldn’t have prepared for an encounter with a corpse that night, not one that wouldn’t vanish into shadow as soon as life had left its body. He took the dagger out of his sock. If this girl was its owner, there had to be some life left inside her fragile body. Otherwise the blade would be gone, and only the gem would remain. 

“You should be more careful which one you throw at people.” He caught laughter on his lips as he traced his thumb over the gem. A displaced gem, separated from the person whose life it held, was no laughing matter, as Aqua would say. The gem started to show signs of its original colour, a startling shade of amber that glowed softly in response to his touch. “Hello? Are you... are you awake? The name’s Ventus, but call me Ven.”

“–Ven.” 

It was the first word that she heard when the world came back to her. Or, more accurately, she came back to the world. Her head spun while she gazed out at the empty car park that she had been using for target practice. It was as desolate as when she had found it and the owners of the onlooking apartments would be asleep at this time of night. She should be too, sound asleep in her dorm room beside her closest friend. But a nocturnal life suited her better – anything would be an improvement on returning to the boys' dorm that she didn’t belong in. One year, they would change it, she hoped. Xion wasn’t betting on it.

Only after a moment did she recognise that she wasn’t alone on the balcony. A pair of green eyes met her own. They were the colour of sea glass, a pale, muted shade. A round face was framed by a windswept mess of golden curls. There was a grin on his face, something effortless yet still filled with beauty.

“...This is yours, right? You... kind of took a chunk out of my ear with it.” The boy pushed a few strands of hair behind his ear to reveal a nick in its side. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine! I was more worried about you– you passed out here, and it looked like you were– you know, dead. You should keep your gem close.”

He held up her dagger, her prized possession. The colour of the gem had changed, back to the orange that it had been when she had first held it in her hands. When she took it, Ven refused to let go. His hand rested over hers, warm and reassuring. Her eyes dared him to let go while his fingers curled around her hand. The moment felt like a rite, a ritual, not the actions of a man that she had met moments before.

Xion tugged the blade away from him when his eyes grew distant. A smile pulled at her lips as it pulled him back to reality. “Thanks. I’m surprised you didn’t just leave... One less person to throw knives at you.”

She scuffed a foot against the ground. The sound of her boot against the wooden balcony made her conscious of its owners. Light still shone from the room behind her and a frustrated voice came from inside. A glance downwards showed a few of the satellite dishes strewn about in pieces on the ground. Xion shot a glare at the boy – Ven, she supposed – and leapt from the edge of the balcony before anyone could find her there.

Ven landed beside her. The impact caused little more than the disturbance of a small amount of dirt. And again, he offered her a grin that could light up the whole city. It felt like a precious thing, something that she was unworthy of, yet Ven seemed the type to give it to anyone he found. For some reason, he had found her and thought her worthy of it without a second to question his decision.

“Hey–! Where are you going? It’s... not the best idea to go out alone. That’s why I have Aqua– I’d be a goner by now if it wasn’t for her.” He stood there for a moment while Xion went ahead. She only noticed that he was no longer following her when she could only hear her own footsteps. “Since we’re both alone tonight, we should stick together until you get home.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. There were others like her, she had been aware of that, but she doubted that all of them would be as amicable to her as Ven was. Unlike most of them, she presumed, she had no home to return to. “Why isn’t she here now, then? If it’s so dangerous, then why would she leave you–?”

“Boyfriend stuff. It doesn’t matter.” His hand reached out to her own. “You look like you’ve been through hell and back... You’ve really been out here alone this whole time?” The skin of his fingers were calloused and raw but his touch was nothing but gentle. It prompted thoughts of what weapon could have slowly chipped the softness from them.

“Not for long.”

His offhand comment made her take note of her own condition; her dress was ripped and torn in places and she could feel places where the creatures had managed to get their claws into her skin earlier in the night. Any pain that she had felt before was fainter, somehow, as though what Ven had done with her gem had a numbing effect on her wounds. The scratches and scrapes could hardly be classified as ‘wounds’ to her, though the saddened look in Ven’s eyes told her that he thought otherwise.

Ven took off the jacket he wore over his clothes, a thick winter coat lined with green fur. It rested heavily against her shoulders. “It’s getting colder. Where do you live?” The coat swamped her but it was a comforting feeling. When his question was met with silence, Ven squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to say.”

“The boarding school. You know the one... everyone knows it.” The school had developed a reputation as the dumping ground for parentless, delinquent young people. Compared to the prestigious preparatory school nearby, it was no wonder that it was treated as the lesser of two options. Xion had never seen Ven in the halls or hanging around the dorms, so that was likely where he came from. She could easily imagine him in the crisp shirt and tie of the prep school’s uniform, with his arm around another student’s shoulders. “I need to be back by dawn.” Colour had started to seep into the sky. Among the orange and gold, the sun poked above the horizon.

The young woman strode ahead of him, briskly passing what Ventus could spend hours observing. Sunlight danced against the puddles of rain from the previous night. There was something about early dawn, when the city was sleepy and every surface reflected the same golden light. For these few hours, the world – not only the rooftops – belonged to them.

Xion seemed to pay the beauty no mind. Her hands dug deep into the pockets of his coat. She had buried her face in the soft green fabric that lined the inside. To shield her face from the cold, he could only guess, but there wasn’t any wind to rustle the trees in the park they were passing through or the hedges that separated the neatly-spaced houses. She walked faster than he did but there wasn’t any urgency in her steps, only a sense of where she was supposed to be. That could be blamed on the winter air too, or a reluctance to return home.

Ven glanced upwards from the dew-studded flowers that had caught his attention. The plants that managed to survive the harsh winter months bought a touch of colour to their otherwise grey home. Xion had already walked far ahead of him, stalking down the pavement half-hidden in his jacket as if she wanted to cover herself from the world. She looked over her shoulder. A smile danced on the edges of her lips. It made him realise how sullen she had looked before, if a hint of a smile could bring so much joy to her face.

“...Not much further now.” Xion informed him. He could assume that their destination was the large, imposing building that cast a shadow over the street below it. Even from a distance the brick walls appeared to be crumbling away from the passing of time. “No one’s going to notice I was missing all night until classes start. Roxas sleeps like a rock.”

“There’s a park over there– want to have a swing?” Ventus caught up to her and pointed to a swing set, slide and climbing frame, enclosed by a metal fence that had been painted a startling shade of blue. It was impossible to wipe the grin from his face. He knew that it was childish, that Xion clearly had more pressing things on her mind, that his idea was sure to be dismissed. “You said no one would notice yet.”

Xion raised an eyebrow. Her eyes wandered from the swings to Ven and back again. “Sure. Fine, why not.” He reached out to take her hand again – it must be cold for her, in a dress that hung just below her thighs and thin, translucent knee-high socks. She snatched it away, only to poke her tongue out at him. “I’ll race you there!”

They ran as fast as they could towards the fence. It felt like they were kids again, just kids, with no weight or worries or wariness of the world around them. Xion reached the swing set first and sat down. Her head rested against the cold metal chain that held the swing in place.

“Are you alright?” Ven asked, breathless. He approached her from behind to start pushing her on the swing. When he was about to start, he felt a hot breath against his collarbone. It seemed like Xion wanted his head as a pillow, if only for a moment or two. Wide, tired eyes gazed up at him and a smile appeared on her face.

“Couldn’t be better.”


End file.
